


Part 2: Recollection

by SesameiBun



Series: Requiem of the Promised [2]
Category: Purple Hyacinth (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, My First Fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24117766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SesameiBun/pseuds/SesameiBun
Summary: "Emptiness was his only companion, until that night. Her golden eyes dipped with pale moonlight, the long-forgotten promise, and a small voice that emerged..."
Relationships: Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White
Series: Requiem of the Promised [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740154
Kudos: 37





	Part 2: Recollection

The echoing of his footsteps as his boots thumped against the damp stones resonated through the empty shell of a building. He would not hide. There was no use trying. He had one target, and one goal. First, the assassins would die. No doubt Belladonna was among those ranks, poison coating the inside of her scabbard, but she meant nothing to him. He would cut her down as easily as the rest.

The PH's ears twitched. Four... no, five pairs of footsteps shuffled quietly in the darkness. The crunch of boots, the pad of rubber, the click of stilettos. All circling him, their prey, his head their trophy to present to the Apostle. For an instant, the air froze, the world stopped turning, as the anticipation in the air solidified and shattered with the whistle of a blade being unsheathed from its scabbard.

No sooner than the first killer's arm extended to strike was it sliced off with a silent blow. Blood exploded from the attacker's limb and the scream built up in his throat did not even have the chance to escape before his carotid artery exploded in a shower of blood and metal. The lifeless body collapsed at the Purple Hyacinth's feet. The cloth mask slid off the vacant face, exposing familiar eyes.

For a moment, Kieran hesitated. He remembered those eyes. Those frightened eyes, which stared into his through rusted iron bars a decade ago. A voice, nearly bobbing to the conscious of his mind, uttered his name—

Another burst of blood abruptly drowned any sentiment from the dead man's face and Kieran turned away. The second attacker, now the second victim, collapsed to the ground in a writhing mass. One by one, each skilled assassin lept from the darkness and bolted towards him faster than he could blink. With every enemy he cut down, another memory resurfaced. The tears in one's eyes, the sadness of another's laugh, and the countless voices of comrades long gone ricocheted through Kieran's brain.

How heinous of them, the lone figure chuckled to himself. To send his former comrades to kill him, what flagrant degeneracy. But he was no better. It was by his merciless sword which they met their ends, dying without ceremony, without sadness, without a single shred of remorse. It was almost funny, how the Purple Hyacinth must achieve his redemption by murdering faceless strangers, not by order of his captor, but by his own free will. How ironic, how the so-called chivalry he desperately wanted for permission to die, would be gained through the spilling of more blood.

_Yes, this is how it will always be_ , Kieran thought to himself. _This is the only thing I know how to do._

_In the end, all I am is a coward._

When Kieran opened his eyes, the fourth assassin's limp body fell to the ground with a hollow splash. His sword was stained with dark red, and he could feel the wounds on his back split open, as the stitches snapped one by one. His breath misted into clouds in the air, and his chest rose and fell at a brisk tempo. The adrenaline gushed through his veins, and the air around him buzzed with anticipation. It seemed like the silence that followed was suspended in the air for a long time. 

This tense air was quickly dispelled as a womanly figure emerged from the shadows. Kieran turned and laid his eyes on Belladonna Davenport, who had not yet unsheathed her poisoned blade. He was partially surprised that her sharp face wore a tight frown rather than her usual smirk.

She stepped closer, and Kieran set his jaw. Her body movements showed no hints of attack.

"Quite a number you did on them," Belladonna remarked, eyeing her dead accomplices lying on the bloodstained cobbles. "Guess they don't call you a monster for nothing."

Kieran didn't respond. His mind was empty but for a thin, glimmering thread stretched across the chasm of his conscience.

A smile flickered across her face before quickly disappearing.

"Sending your old cellmates back to kill you was dirty. They enjoyed the idea of testing your resolve, though." She furrowed her brows. "But this game is over now. They were meant to be taken care of anyway. If you come without a fight now, they might spare your life." 

The string trembled. Miniscule fibers untwisted and broke in the darkness.

"Living doesn't excite me anymore," Kieran said quietly. "You can go back and tell the Leader he can send as many assassins as he wants."

Belladonna sneered. "So you repay his generosity with betrayal? You are far from invincible—"

"All the better, then." Venom slithered into Kieran's voice. When he lifted his face, empty eyes of ocean blue glowed menacingly in the dark. "I relish the thought of slicing through another legion of meaningless pawns. Send as many as you want. It's my fate to die surrounded by the blood of countless bodies and the smell of despair and death."

A smile broke across the Purple Hyacinth's face. "You, on the other hand, can die by yourself, Belladonna Davenport, as a dog wagging its tail at its master even as the euthanasia splits your brains open. After all, they were never yours to begin with."

Belladonna's rouged lips twisted into a snarl and she unsheathed her dagger with a flash of serpentine steel. A drop of liquid death slid down the blade and splashed to the bloodstained ground, where it sizzled and steamed into the stone. 

"Fool," she hissed. "You will die like a dog in the gutter, useful to nobody and serving no purpose. You will have died knowing you contributed nothing to this cause, because you couldn't stand yourself." Belladonna stepped closer and the thread grew taut in Kieran's mind.

She smirked and licked her lips. "What a pity. You aren't an assassin or a man at all. You're just a monster, and you are painfully aware of it, aren't you—"

_Snap_.

She had not the chance to catch her next breath before Kieran lunged forward and slammed her body against a column with a choking grip. Belladonna gasped as her skull was crushed against the cement. Dust and debris rained down, displaced by the shattering impact. The skin of Kieran's throat tingled as he barely tasted the bite of Belladonna's Golden Viper blade. Millimeters before the coated edge touched his skin, he whipped his dagger from his waist holster and stabbed through her palm, pinning her hand against the cinder block column. Blood splattered and the serpent blade clanged to the ground, its emerald green eyes staring up at its failed master.

Belladonna choked as his grip around her neck tightened. "The Leader," she gasped, "will have us both hanged for this."

Blood dripped down Kieran's face and his hollow eyes remained indifferent. This situation was vaguely familiar, but the eyes that glared up at him were not gold.

"Then maybe," Kieran whispered softly, "you should have stayed out of my fucking way."

The Purple Hyacinth lifted his blade to her throat. A single line of blood-red opened on her jugular before she tensed and plunged a knife into Kieran's abdomen.

Kieran's eyes widened and Belladonna shrieked as her dismembered hand flopped to the ground. She kicked out and her heel connected with Kieran's ribcage, sending him staggering backwards and gasping in pain. She tugged the blade which pinned her remaining hand free from the column and stumbled backwards. Blood gushed freely from her wound as she threw Kieran one last hateful look before slinking through the window into the night.

\-----

Kieran kneeled on the ground for what seemed like an eternity. His head spun with blood loss and stars danced in front of his eyes. The cold blade embedded into his flesh felt like writhing, scalding hot metal. His breathing was ragged and the taste of his own blood coated his mouth. The smell was overwhelming, like a thick fog of vapor that hung suspended in the air. Taking the knife out now would be suicide, but getting up to find the Apostle wasn't an option either.

Kieran cursed under his breath and clenched his shaking hands. He had to get up. There was no other option. He could not let his miserable life go wasted because of a single stab wound. He had to fulfill his promise—for him. 

Or was it for Lauren? For her gentle voice, her callused hands, or perhaps it was for her sad, sunshine eyes, which he so wanted to see one more time...?

Kieran grimaced as he leaned on his sword and pushed himself to stand. As he gasped for breath and braced himself against the column, he smiled regretfully.

Strange, how he didn't loathe these feelings, which he had banished from his mind for so many years, which he had denied and ignored and denied again, for what? To protect such an empty fortress rotting already from the inside? To bury a scared little boy behind a mask and a ruthless title? Yes, so it was. So afraid to lose that nothing else was left to live for. Emptiness was his only companion, until that night. Her golden eyes dipped with pale moonlight, the long-forgotten promise, and a small voice that emerged.

"Please."

"No matter what you do... Don't forget." Crystal tears bubbling out of eyes of steel burned into Kieran's mind. 

Dylan smiled. "I don't want anyone else to die."

A harsh laugh escaped Kieran's throat. So many bodies lying beneath his boots that he could almost feel the blood drowning his throat, but despite all this, a quiet mind dared to whisper,

What if

not dying

wouldn't be so bad after all?

The scream of a blade slicing through the air next to his ear abruptly cut his thoughts short. Hair strands, raven black and stained with blood, snapped into the air. The Phantom Scythe's emblem carved into steel flashed before his eyes and bit into his blade in an explosion of sparks.

Apostle VII smiled from underneath his bloodstained hood. His face was a dark oblivion, cut with the shape of his beaked mask and adorned with the beadiness of his eyes. His breath exited in hisses of noxious gas, like sulfur through a volcanic vent.

"The Purple Hyacinth," he purred, "has withered."

**Author's Note:**

> Intertwining the dialogue and action was challenging ;-;


End file.
